The Talent of Brooding Is an Acquired One
by Rashaka
Summary: Sucky title, I know. This a Spike vignette, post-Wrecked. That's all I can say, except... I strive to be different.


Heh.  Here's a little Spike vignette.  Post "Wrecked", I guess.  And as a side note, I thought I'd enrich my writing a little with some quotations from foreign literature.  Put those three years of French to a little work.

I don't own Spike the Slayer-Loving Vampire, or the words from Le Petit Prince, or the name of the dream-world that I misspelled from the Wheel of Time books.  I couldn't resist using my favorite line ever from Druscilla in Becoming2, so I tossed it in.  You'll probably be able to spot it.  I know that Spike coud dream, but I don't know if they ever showed Angel or any others dreaming.  Assume not, for this.

**The Talent of Brooding Is an Acquired One****  
By Rashaka**

         Sometimes I want to shoot myself.  Not stake myself— that's still a little too permanent for my liking.  Just a nice, gory shot to the head though.  Something that'll put me out for a few days, ya know, get this sodding suicide urge out of my system.  Besides, eating a bullet is one of the preferred ways for humans to go, isn't it?  A Yankee tradition I think, and this is good ol' bloody America.  

         God know I've been behaving like a human so much lately I might as well try kicking the bucket like one.

         What does it take, what in all her majesty's bloody hells does to get through to that bitch?  Do I have to die before she fucking admits that she might bloody well like having me around?  And why the hell is she only a bitch around me?  What makes me so soddin special that even after doing anything she's asked of me for two years strait I get bitchBuffy while everyone else gets happyBuffy?

         Nah.  Can't dwell on that, my friend. You know you get bitchBuffy most of the time because bitchBuffy is RealBuffy.  And you can't honestly complain about that, mate, now can you?

         Oh sodding fucking hell, listen to me.  A few measly years in the bloody Colonies w' you and I'm losing my god damn accent already.  Another way she's tamed me.

         Tamed.  What *was* that French book Dru liked me to read to her so much?  Right.   Bout a lil prince it was.  He was an alien.  And the fox, a fox that spoke in riddles.  _Si tu m'apprivoises, nous aurons besoin l'un de l'autre._  If you tame me, we'll always need one another.

         I whisper the next words aloud, knowing I'm only damning myself to more misery again. 

          "_Tu seras pour moi unique au monde._"   

         To me, you will be unique in the world.

         Yeah, Dru, you were good at shit like that.  Talkin' to animals and the like.  Buggers always gave you many more words than they gave me, pet.

         So Slayer.  Buffy.  You've got yourself a tamed vampire.  The damage is done, my love.  Like the fox said, I'll never be wild again.  Too caught up in everything that's you.

         So why do you have to be such nasty bint about it?  And what the fuck's with being so sodding self-delusional?  Love, you're drownin' in denial five miles deep.  And you used to be such a smart bird too.  Kicked my ass even with the Gem of Amara, you did.

         Well, now that's got a laugh in itself.  Cause as soon as you've finally actually *had* my ass, you run off like *I* took advantage of *you*, and you weren't the one who just happened to jump *my* bones into the wall.  Positively delightful, that selective memory of yours.

         I wish you would wake up and smell the love and devotion, Slayer.  Because you've had your funk period and now you're just being cruel.  You're too good for cruelty, love.

         I'm not though, and sometimes everyone forgets.  They didn't tell you what happened the first two weeks you were gone, did they?

          'S'ok, really.  I mean, really, it's not important.  And they probably didn't know anyway.  Well, Giles might have guessed.  And Red.  But they didn't tell me if they did know.  And really, it wasn't so bad.   I was just a little crazy.  Nothing to be worried about.  It… I was in a bad place, ya know?  But it worked.  Helped, even.  With my Promise I mean.  Some of them had planned to move in on the Key now that the Buffy Summers wasn't around.  Did you guess that might happen?  It's no secret that every demon in Sunnydale knows where the Slayer lives-- well, all the ones that are at least a few months old.  I'm not sure you were aware of that, though, were you love?

         But it doesn't matter now.  I'm over it.  And, they didn't come near Revello Drive for a long while, or the high school.  I didn't mean to abandon Dawn for so many days—any days more than one is too many, I know, I know.  But I went out of my head for a while; got them pretty damn scared.  The lower-level demons the most—I kind of lost track of how many it was after the first four days—only things we've had to worry about over the summer were newbie vampires. The new rep probably won't last much longer though, or they wouldn't have even let me into play cards, much less bring the Slayer along.

         And there is an upside to temporary insanity, if you bloody well believe it.  The demon community doesn't think I'm weak anymore.  For a while I had passed the line of traitor-they-can-rightfully-execute to loose-cannon-they're-afraid-to-be-in-a-room-with.

         Of course you'll never know about that.  Well, I hope you don't.  In light of my new and improved self that is trying to be good, gratuitous violence isn't what you need to hear about me.

         I prol'ly should apologize for that Slayer remark.  I was in the moment.  Not much experience in pillow talk, ya know?  Harmony was denser than bricks and Dru was…well, Dru.  Nothing ever normal with her.  

         Hey, I bet you never thought of that.  Would you still kill vamps if you knew we had pillow talk after sex, just like humans.  Ok, so may' ours tended be a bit bloodier and more graphic than yours…but it was still there.

         Nah, you'd probably say it wasn't real, just one more way for vampires to falsely imitate humanity.

         Wanna know something else, love?  Demons don't dream.  Got dreams in the sense that we've got goals and plans and schemes we'd like to carry out, but no real sleep-dreams.

         Except me.  That should crack you up big time pet.  I dream all the time, always have.  I even went a whole bleedin' six years with Dru before I realized I was alone in it, that the others didn't still have dreams, just like when they were alive.  See, it's not natural.  Vampires are never supposed to enter Talaren'rhiod.  That's what we demons call it, anyway.  That unreachable place where we're not allowed to go.  I guess you lot would call it REM sleep.  Whole deal delighted Dru, of course.  Said it was one more way that made her Spike special for Princess.

         Would you find it delightful, Slayer?  Or would it just scare you off even more.  How bout this, Buffy: I was dreaming when I realized I loved you.

         In my dreams, in the dreams Darla and Angelus swore violently that I'm wasn't supposed to have, you weren't afraid to say you loved me.  You weren't afraid to hear me say I loved you.  But I'm a monster.  And monsters don't love.  Monsters don't dream.

         So why do I?  Why don't you know already that every dream I have, since the day I saw you dance, has been about you?  You should know it in your bones, Slayer, so why the hell don't you?  First I dreamed of killing you.  Then I dreamed of having you.  And forever ago, I started to dream of loving you.

         After The Day, I dreamed of saving you.

         But that's all ended now.  Because last night, when we slept with the dust and the rubble and only our skins between us, I had a new dream. I didn't dream of another way to win you, or to keep you, be it from death or from other men.  Last night I dreamed of you trying to keep me.

         I dreamed that you asked me to stay, Slayer.

         And cor, Buffy, that was the sweetest dream I ever had.

.end.


End file.
